I got a bunch to talk about, but lots on my plate and company over at the house.
Still I had to quote just this one line from this article:
Next Wednesday, the Seattle city council will consider a new policy measure, a “gun violence tax,” that would add an excise of $25 to every firearm and five cents to each round of ammunition sold in the city. Funds raised in this manner would be dedicated to gun violence prevention and public health research. The city’s budget office projects the tax would raise between $300,000 and $500,000 per year.
Whoever wrote that list bit is either stupid, evil, or a combination of that.
Seattle, like Boston is a big city, but small in Area. It’s not like Houston, or LA where it takes a bit of driving just to get out of the city if you live near the middle. So yeah what does a SANE person think if suddenly all the shops in one area guns cost $25 above the cost of guns a short drive away? Further, let’s face it, if you’re a shooter, you’ve probably spent several magnitudes more on ammo than you have on guns. 0.05c per bullet is SERIOUS money! that’s $25 bucks on a brick of .22!!! That’s $2.50 on a box of 50 rounds.
Planning a weekend of shooting, you simply are NOT going to shop in Seattle. You’ll shop outside the city, or buy your ammo online, or get your guns from private sales (which we all know everybody still does there despite the new law).
Gun shops will either need to cut profits, or simply cease to compete with shops just miles away.
And either way, they go out of business, unless they’re one of those FFLs who are so diversified that they pay the rent with selling clothing, accessories or camping goods rather than sales on the back of their FFL.
So where exactly is that $300,000-$500,000 to come from? Either this person is so stupid that they think people will simply pay more money for something, even when it’s easy not to, or they’re running a Con where they are waiving money in the face of the anti-gunners to get them excited about this do-nothing law.
I mean it’s not like the Seattle Gangs go to FFLs in the first place….
Good news report here:
First, this sort of thing is how Florida ended up with its local preemption law.
Second, stupid liberal, you can’t complain about the medical costs of gun violence anymore because Obamacare!
Likely putting gun shops out of business was the whole point all along. Does it reduce the number of guns or the amount of violence? Nope. But the anti is petty and would call it a win anyway.
The city has already pushed most of the dealers out. To be best of my knowledge, Seattle’s city limits encompass:
One rather nice gun store (I suspect the owners retired early from MSFT or similar and can afford to keep attack lawyers on retainer). Very gun culture 2.0 and I’ll miss them if I ever escape.
One outdoor warehouse store that sells a lot of guns (think Bass Pro or Cabella’s with no decorating budget).
A chain of small, low-end outdoors stores that stock rimfire EBR clones and Fud guns, no handguns, no centerfire autoloaders. They do stock handgun and EBR ammo.
A handful of pawnshops that are also FFLs. At least one has the long guns on a rack but covers the handgun case. Probably got tired of mopping up after pants wetting hipsters.
No where to shoot (but a couple places to get shot at oddly enough).